This invention relates to binders such as ringbinders used to hold sheets of paper and other similar material in which holes are punched, and more particularly to a ring binder assembly for use in such ringbinders.
As is well-known in the art, ringbinders are typically used to hold and store punched sheets of paper; although, other suitably punched materials can also be held in a ringbinder. While smaller size ringbinders are used by school students, for example, other applications are for professional or business usage. Here larger size ringbinders; i.e., those designed to hold quantities of paper three inches to six inches thick, are used to store catalog information sheets for retail stores. Or, they can be used to hold specification "spec" sheets which contain a variety of product and performance information about a particular product. In an auto parts or appliance repair stores, for example, there is a constant influx of information on new products, changes to existing products, updated price lists, etc. It is not uncommon in these situations for the volume of paper stored in a ringbinder to soon become very thick. Further, when sheets are removed from a ringbinder to make way for new information sheets, the old sheets are not necessarily discarrier, but rather are stored for possible future reference. Again, the volume of such sheets stored in a ringbinder for this purpose soon becomes very large.
Conventional ringbinders typically have two or three binder rings each of which comprises two separate arcuate segments whose outer ends are in contact with each other when the binder is closed. When a reasonable amount of paper is stored in the binder, the binder is easily kept closed. However, when the mount of paper exceeds a certain amount, it becomes more difficult to keep the binder tightly closed. Rather, the excess paper tends to pull on the respective binder segments forcing them slightly apart. This condition is commonly referred to as "sponginess". Because the information usually stored in a binder must be readily accessed, when new sheets arrive, they most probably are added to an existing binder, rather than a new ringbinder being used with some of the sheets being transferred from the old ringbinder to the new. This especially true where binders are labeled or otherwise marked with the range of information they contain. Often there might not be time to reorder and relabel a series of binders to accommodate all the sheets being stored. A major drawback to this, of course, is that the "spongy" binders open easily, often when not intended. Paper spills, lost temper, poor customer service are all possible results of this condition. Or, because of the way paper folds when the binder is open, it gets increasingly difficult to read the material printed or written at the inner margins of the paper where the pages are held. This also makes it difficult to photocopy or reproduce a page without first removing it from the binder. And because of the large number of pages kept in the binder, a number of pages may have to be removed to facilitate removing the desired page. It would be advantageous therefore to have a binder which not only accommodates a substantial amount of paper, but one which will not readily come open at the wrong time.